Gun Fu-lish

Film: John Wick: Chapter 4
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on basement television.

When, exactly, did action movies become things that took up an entire day to watch? Take a look at the John Wick saga, by way of example. The first movie came in at a tidy 101 minutes. The sequel barely cracked the two hour barrier at 122 minutes and the third crew a little longer at 133 minutes. And now we have John Wick: Chapter 4 that comes in at a brain-melting 169 minutes, a stone’s throw from a full three hours. Why? What’s the point of making this movie a solid 45 minutes longer than it needs to be to tell its story?

I’m going to go into this under the assumption that you have seen the first three chapters in the John Wick saga. By way of quick recap, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a former assassin who left the life to live a quiet life. This was cut short when his wife succumbed to cancer. A chance encounter after that brought him out of retirement and back into a thriving underworld of crime and assassins. A badly-considered murder or two later, and Wick is on the run from the entire criminal underworld. That’s where we are in this fourth installment. With the entire criminal establishment after him and a bounty on his head, John Wick attempts to survive, even if that means buying himself back into the underworld for a third time.

More (and Fewer) Brains

Film: Return of the Living Dead II
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Genre mash-ups aren’t easy to do, something that is evidenced by the fact that a lot of them are ultimately not very good. Certainly there are a number of exceptions to this idea, something that is evidenced by the fact that there are a lot of great ones. Return of the Living Dead is an example of a great horror/comedy, and one that genuinely affected the idea of zombie movies. The “zombies eat brains” trope comes from this movie, not from Romero. Unfortunately, the sequel is the opposite, starting with the uninteresting name of Return of the Living Dead II.

If you don’t remember (or never saw) the first movie, the basic conceit is that the original Night of the Living Dead was a real outbreak, but instead of destroying the zombies, thy were captured and contained. And, naturally, they were misplaced and shipped to a facility in Kentucky. Wanting to impress his new protégé, a worker in the facility releases a zombie and mayhem ensues. We’re going to essentially forget all of that here. Return of the Living Dead II is more or less an unconnected movie with the same basic name.

Invite Him--He's a Fungi

Film: Gaia
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

One of the things I like about horror movies is that they reflect the time in which they are created. Go back to the 1950s, and a lot of the horror is science fiction-based and has hints of both atomic mutants and the threat of Cold War Russia. There’s a reason that Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original) can be reasonably interpreted as both anti-communist and anti-McCarthyism. 9/11 caused a rise in American nationalism and led directly to movies like Hostel, where the evil was “out there” in non-American places that put us in danger. With the increasing threat of climate disaster looming, films like Gaia are absolutely where horror is going to go in the years to come.

Gaia starts with a pair of workers for the South African forestry service working on a survey. They are traveling by river, and Gabi (Monique Rockman) is operating a drone while her partner Winston (Anthony Oseyemi) paddles the canoe. The plot essentially begins when the drone gets knocked out—Gabi gets a glimpse of what looks like a mud-covered person knocking it out of the sky. Not wanting to leave electronic garbage in a forested area, Winston drops her ashore so she can track the drone and meet up with him later.

Stealing Fire

Film: Prometheus
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

I question the idea of prequels sometimes. They can make sense for those who want the backstory on something that they love, but they cause real problems with science fiction movies. That’s definitely the case with Prometheus, which is a prequel to Alien. It’s also a movie that came out several decades after the movie that follows it in the timeline, and this is an issue, beyond the obvious problem of things not matching up the way they should.

There is also the serious question of how to classify this movie. There are definite horror elements, and anything in the greater Alien universe is absolutely going to struggle getting away entirely from the horror designation. But Prometheus is only horror in parts. There are certainly elements of horror here, but not a lot of surprises. Anyone who knows Alien knows where we are going and can assume the fates of most of the people on board the ship after which the movie is named. And so, this becomes nothing more than a playing out of events to get us to setting up the chess board for Alien the way we need it set up.

What I've Caught Up With, September 2023

I've got about three more months of my life being completely out of control. I get a little of it back with the start of the new year. Until then, watching a movie or two whenever I get a moment seems to be what is keeping me sane--that and trying out new recipes. I caught up on a few movies in September and have also watched a couple of seasons of The Blacklist as well as the short follow-up season to Justified. More to come in October.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-...Mans?

Film: Spider-Man: No Way Home
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

A couple of years ago, I would have happily told you that I was fully on board with all of the MCU properties, or at least most of them. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but when I watched Avengers: Endgame, some of that ended for me. It felt like we had reached the end of a complete story (which we had, of course), and knowing what I know about comic books, I know that nothing ever really gets resolved. Finishing Endgame felt like a good place to get off the ride. And yet, I think it might be impossible to be fully abreast of modern culture without staying at least a little familiar with the later stories. And so, here I am finishing up the latest Spider-Man troika with Spider-Man: No Way Home.

No longer content with simpler stories of a hero taking on an enemy, or even several enemies, we’re going full-tilt into the Multiverse with this one. At the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the secret identity of Spider-Man as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is revealed to the world, and he is held responsible for the death of Mysterio, who was actually the bad guy the whole time. With his secret out, his life becomes a trainwreck; he is constantly harassed, and because of the scandal, he is refused admission to every college he applies for. Worse, the same thing happens to his friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and Parker’s girlfriend MJ (Zendaya).

Girlfriend is Better

Film: Stop Making Sense
Format: Classic Cinemas Charlestowne 18

A lot of high schools have a tradition, looked down on by faculty, of Senior Ditch Day. All/most of the seniors essentially blow off school for a day, typically a Friday, to get a three-day weekend. For where I grew up, the tradition for many was to spend a day at the Indiana Dunes, about a 2-hour drive from home. My friends and I, though, went to downtown Chicago and saw Stop Making Sense at the Music Box Theater.

Stop Making Sense is a concert film, and it’s nothing more than a concert film. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that, though, because this is a Talking Heads concert, and David Byrne’s style (and less so the rest of the group) is as much about the visuals as it is about the music. It’s about the full experience, something that shouldn’t be too surprising coming from a musical group where 75% of the core members met at art school.